The Link Between Human History, Fire Regimes, and Vegetation in the Prehistoric South

Archaeological, ethnohistorical, and botanical evidence from southern landscapes suggest that Native American history is linked to changes in fire regimes and vegetation.

Many areas of the South have been shaped by fire regimes that include both human-caused fires and lightning-ignited fires for several thousand years. For instance, the Okefenokee Swamp in south Georgia has been occupied by people for at least 6,000 years (Wright ND). Fires, together with local meteorology, have substantially influenced the creation and maintenance of prairies in the Okefenokee Swamp. Pre-European pre-climax forests in the southern Piedmont were maintained by a combination of lightning-ignited fires and fires lit by native inhabitants (Cowell 1998; Delcourt and Delcourt 1997).

Native Americans at Fort Center, Florida may have used fire to clear vegetation for their gardens and to maintain grasslands. An increase in prescribed burning is associated with an increase in maize cultivation at Fort Center between 1000 BC and AD 450. In other areas, Indians may have used fire to maintain open, longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) communities. When Native Americans abandoned the area in the 1600s because of disease, slavery, and conflict, fire regimes changed and broad-leaved forests emerged where homesites, gardens, and grasslands had been (Myers and Peroni ND). The old-growth longleaf pine stands that can be found nowadays in south-central Florida probably began growing in the 1700s shortly after Indians stopped using fire to clear fields and homesites (Myers and Peroni ND). Sand pines now grow in the former longleaf pine communities that Indians may have been managing using frequent, low-intensity fires.

In Ocala National Forest, longleaf pine islands and patches composed of sand pines (Pinus clausa), shrubs, and palms were partially created by Indian burning practices (Kalisz 1986; Myers and Peroni ND). Many longleaf pine stands in Ocala National Forest are located near permanent water sources and near prehistoric archaeological sites. 93% of archaeological sites from the Late Archaic tradition (6000 BP to 3000 BP), and the Transition Period (3000 BP to 2500 BP) were in longleaf pine stands. 64% of archaeological sites from St. Johns Period I (2500 BP to 1200 BP) and St. Johns Period II (1200 BP to Contact) were located in longleaf pine stands (Kalisz 1986). Longleaf pine stands need to be burned every 1 to 5 years in order to reduce understory competition and facilitate seedling growth. Lightning-ignited fires currently occur in Ocala National Forest at a rate of 1.7 per year per 10,000 acres.

Fort Frederica on Saint Simons Island in Georgia has a long history of human-caused fires lasting from the prehistoric era through the early 1900s (Bratton 1985). A chronological account of occupants of Fort Frederica include the following: prehistoric Indians; Spanish missions after 1565 with subsequent abandonment by the Spanish; Creek Indians; English settlers in the early 1700s; English abandonment in 1753; plantation owners and slaves in the 1780s and 1790s; abandonment by plantation owners in 1860; small farmers in 1870s; and the Sea Island Company in the early 1900s. Changes in fire regimes that occurred in association with changes in human inhabitance during the past 400-500 years have caused vegetative patterns to shift from the evergreen oak forests described by the first European explorers to the contemporary forests composed of mostly laurel oak (Quercus laurifolia), water oak (Q. nigra), live oak (Q. virginiana), and loblolly pine (Pinus taeda).

The disappearance of pre-contact grasslands after the appearance of Europeans and changes in fire regimes suggest that Native American burning practices may have maintained grasslands. Historical descriptions suggest that grasslands were formerly ubiquitous in the southern Piedmont (Barden 1997). A map drawn by John Lederer in 1672 portrays grasslands on the Virginia Piedmont. In 1705 Robert Beverly described the hundreds of acres of grasslands on the Virginia Piedmont. In the 1720s Mark Catesby noted that there were ”…many spacious tracts of meadow-land….burdened with grass six feet high” (Barden 1997) in the Carolinas. In Ashley County, Arkansas survey records from General Land Office note the presence of grasslands (Bragg 2003). Based on analogies with contemporary southern ecological processes, we can infer that humans were somewhat responsible for these grasslands. In the southern Piedmont, grasslands are created by major disturbances like fire and, if they are not maintained by a regular disturbance regime, other vegetative communities quickly replace them.

Indian fire regimes contributed to the dynamic vegetative mosaic that covered the Southern Appalachians prior to European exploration (Delcourt and Delcourt 1997). Archaeological investigations show that Native Americans have occupied the Little Tennessee River watershed since the beginning of the Holocene 10,000-12,000 BP (Chapman and others 1982). As the Holocene progressed, people had greater impacts on vegetation in this watershed: increases in arboreal/tree taxa that prefer disturbed areas accompanied increases in human population, plant domestication (beginning as early as 4,400 BP in the Little Tennessee River Valley), and the intensification of plant cultivation. The closed canopy forests in the early Holocene (beginning 10,000 BP) and mid-Holocene (beginning 4,000 BP) consisted of about 10% early succession taxa. Evidence suggests that Indians in the Southern Appalachians were setting landscape-scale fires during the Archaic Period (8,000-2,800 BP) (Buckner 2000). By the Mississippian period (1,300 to 400 BP), forests in the Little Tennessee River Valley consisted of 50% early-succession taxa including pine (Pinus), red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera), and cane (Arundinaria) (Chapman and others 1982). The canebrakes described by Europeans who explored the Appalachians are vegetative communities that are created and maintained by fire.

Native Americans burned portions of the Southern Appalachian region and left other portions unburned (Van Lear and Waldrop 1989). Indians determined fire frequencies based on their goals for the burn and the types of fuels in the burn site (Brose and others 2001). Indians may have conducted annual burns on sites covered with grasses and herbs. They burned sites with mast-producing shrubs less than once per year, and burned wooded sites about every ten years. Other burning patterns were “…areas going unburned for decades; spring and fall fires in the same year; high-intensity, stand-replacing fires after a major ice or windstorm…” (Brose and others 2001). Fire played a significant role in shaping prehistoric vegetative patterns on the Pottsville Escarpment in eastern Kentucky (Ison 2000) where lightning-ignited fires occur during the summer growing season at the rate of 5 fires per 1 million acres. Fires became more frequent and burned in more places after the beginning of agriculture, presumably because Native Americans used fire to clear land for planting and building homes.

The oldest human remains in Horse Cove Bog near Highlands, North Carolina are from 8,000 BC (Delcourt and Delcourt 1997). Palynological, archaeological, and charcoal data suggest that Native Americans in Horse Cove Bog were using fire to select for particular ecological conditions. In the Late Archaic (5,000 to 2,800 BP), Indians probably set fire to upper slopes and ridges for hunting. Ridge fires maintained stands of Table Mountain Pine and Pitch Pine. During the Late Archaic, Woodland (2,800 to 1,300 BP), and Mississippian (1,300 to 400 BP) periods, Indians probably burned riverine areas around their settlements for a variety of subsistence purposes. From 2000 BC until the early 1800s, oak and chestnut were the dominant forest trees in Horse Cove Bog with bracken and grassy understories. In 1811 the forests consisted of oak (42%), pine (25.5%), chestnut (19.5%) and hickory (2%). The effect of Indian fire regimes in the prehistoric era at Horse Cove Bog, North Carolina was an increase in diversity at the species and community levels (Delcourt and Delcourt 1997). The first Euro-Americans settled Cades Cove, North Carolina in 1790 (BROKEN-LINK Harmon 1982) and the nearby Horse Cove Bog in AD 1837.

Humans were living in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands by at least 10,000 BP (Foti and others 1999). Throughout time, fires have been a major force in creating and maintaining the prairies, pine forests, and oak forests in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands. But fire behavior and the relative influences of lightning-ignited and human-caused fires vary within the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands. Generally, the majority of lightning-ignited fires occur from March to April and from July through September (Foti and others 1999). Indians ignited fires in the winter and late summer or early fall. Indians north of the Ozark Highlands managed grasslands with annual winter burns. Quapaw Indians may have been a substantial source of fires. Approximately 6,000 Quapaw lived near the confluence of the White, Arkansa, and Mississippi Rivers in Arkansas during the Mississippian phase (AD 800 -1350) where they practiced agriculture, as well as hunted and gathered. Fire regimes changed significantly after the 1540s when European diseases impacted Ozark-Ouachita Indian populations. Quapaw influence on the landscape declined with the arrival of Europeans and the exotic diseases that reduced their population to about 700 people by 1763 (Guyette and Dey 2000).

See also First Peoples and Cherokee Mountains in the Encyclopedia of Southern Forest Ecosystems.